FRUSTRATION

Meet Ensign Harold Patrick DeMoss 395294 US Navy. He was one of the 739 pilots that went missing while flying a Grumman Hellcat. The sad part is he really isn't missing, just unrecovered on the island of Oahu, Hawaii!

Since 1948, the family has tried to get his remains recovered and brought home without success. Since 2011, the Hawaiian Aviation Preservation Society (HAPS) got involved. The group made numerous attemps to the remote site (Lat 21-35-25N Long 157-57-50W) before they were successful. (JPAC won't get involved with the case until the wreckage was found.)

Now after 47 years of trying and four years since JPAC got involved, nothing has changed. Harold is still buried on a mountainside.

JPAC's record for not recovering a Hellcat pilot on the island of Oahu is 16 years. How long will this one take? (See the Warnke case on the recovered MIA's page of this web site.)

You can read more about the efforts that went into finding the wreck at;

(Note: There are 17 other Hellcat pilots buried as unknowns around the Pacific. We have tentatively identified 10 of them and are just waiting for the records to arrive to start the identification process.)

UPDATE: The site has been searched and we are awaiting the results of laboratory testing for a positive ID. Also three of the other Hellcat pilots that are buried as unknowns have been submitted to DPAA for identification.